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Pinus bungeana

March

I'm not sure why the lacebark pine is as rare as it seems to be. I choose this image of it as a distant misty presence to express the spirit of an elusive tree, chosen by the Emperor of China to flank the steps of a gilded pavilion. The other ancient trees in the photograph are Juniperus chinensis, the common northern Chinese juniper that serves the same purpose as the sentinel cypress in Italy. Endless files and avenues of juniper clothe Beijing in winter.

Von Bunge's pine (to give it its western name) has exfoliating bark from a fairly early age but takes many years to achieve a silvery trunk that at a distance can be almost like a plane. Not that it is a slow-growing tree to start with. Seed I collected in Beijing 20 years ago has produced a rather lanky tree now 25 feet high, with slim wandering branches that seem rather underweight for their rigid dark green needles, three in a bunch. Little scraps of bark curl and flake off from ten years or so, making it an easy tree to recognize. Yet there are few in this country, and apparently none over 40 feet or so.

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